Freaky Fast Frankie Joe

Twelve-year-old Frankie Joe Huckaby, forced to live with the father he never knew, a stepmother, and four half-brothers in Illinois, starts a delivery service to finance his escape back to his mother in Texas, not realizing he is making a better life for himself than he ever had with her.

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Summary

Finely and her best friend Maya thought it would be a cute idea to categorize the boys in their middle-school classroom according to how they behaved. Tadpoles were boys who still acted immature for their age, croakers were showing signs of maturity, and frogs were fully-developed, able to talk to girls without their voices breaking or making some insensitive remark. But things get confusing for Finley when Maya doesn't seem to be interested in the list anymore and a boy she thought was kicked out of school the year before returns. In Finley’s opinion, Zachary jumped from tadpole to frog in the time he was gone. But when Finley’s list goes public, war breaks out between the boys and the girls. Finley will have to get creative to bring peace back to her school.

frankie joe's mom is in jail and he has to live with his dad in illonois he has half-brothers named matt, mark,johnny,luke

ELIZABETH RAMSEY BIRD
Aug 06, 2012

Here’s a basic rule of thumb. Anytime you run into four boys named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, odds are you’re going to find them less than saintly individuals. That’s bad. What’s worse is if you suddenly discover you’re their big brother. Frankie Joe always led a life that he liked. He had lots of folks in the trailer park to watch over him and a mom that’s a lot more fun than the ones that make their kids go to school every day. Everything was just ducky until she went and got herself arrested. Now Frankie Joe’s father, a guy he’s never even met, appears out of the blue and takes the boy to middle-of-nowhere Plainview, Illinois. The deal is that Frankie Joe will stay there for the ten months his mom’s in the hoosegow, but ten months is too long for this boy. Not only are his newfound younger brothers a bother (particularly alpha male Matt) but his father’s some kind of stickler for self-improvement. That’s when a brilliant idea occurs. Frankie Joe’s fast on a bike. Really fast. Freaky fast. What if he started a delivery service and earned the money he needed to buy the stuff he’d use to get back to the old trailer park to wait out his mom? It’s a crazy plan but he’s sure it’ll work. That is, if he can just harden his heart to Plainview and the people who are in it.

Comment

Frankie Joe’s greatest strength is his ability to win the readership over to his side of things. You may not agree with his logic or his plans, but you like the darn kid. Not just because he’s put upon at the start, but because there’s something open and honest and original about him. We don’t run across too many perfectly nice and smart kids that skip school with reckless abandon in literature these days. Frankie Joe fills that niche and a couple others while he’s at it. A good kid in a good book written for good readers with good sense. Worth a reread too, while you’re at it.